County Traffic Deaths Increasing

March 9, 1987|By MICHAEL LASALANDRA, Staff Writer

Traffic fatalities in Broward County are up more than 100 percent in the first two months compared with last year, but officials don`t know why.

Statistics supplied by the Florida Highway Patrol show there were 48 fatalities on Broward streets in January and February of this year. Last year, there were only 23 traffic deaths in the first two months.

``It`s hard to put your finger on why,`` said Lt. Jim Lee of the FHP. ``We`ve been trying to pinpoint a cause to help direct our enforcement efforts.``

Alcohol seemed to be a significant factor, at least in January 1987, when 52 percent of all Broward traffic deaths were alcohol-related. That figure is higher than in January 1986, when only 25 percent of traffic deaths involved alcohol, and higher than in January 1985, when the alcohol-related figure was 36 percent.

Lee said the highway patrol moved in February of this year to step up its drunken-driving enforcement as a result of the January figures.

The enforcement program, and its attendant publicity, may have had an impact. Only three of the 15 fatalities in February of this year were alcohol-related.

Lee said the increase in deaths this January may not be as significant as it seems because the number of fatalities in January 1986 were unusually low.

``January 1986 was a very good month,`` he said. ``Fatalities were way down. It makes this year look that much worse by comparison.``

There were 14 deaths in January 1985, but only eight in January 1986. The figure jumped to 29 in January 1987.

Of the 48 killed in the first two months of this year, 19, or 40 percent, were pedestrians.

That percentage remains exactly the same as in the first two months of last year, when nine of the 23 deaths -- 40 percent -- were pedestrians.

The streets of Hallandale were dangerous for pedestrians in both years. The first two months of 1986 saw two pedestrians die in Hallandale. The same period in 1987 saw three pedestrians killed on that city`s streets.

Interstate 95 claimed two lives in the first two months of 1986 and three in the first two months of this year.

Increased traffic may have played a part in the jump in traffic deaths.

The Sawgrass Expressway, which opened in July 1986, claimed its first victim in January 1987.

But traffic engineers say that while there are more cars on the county`s highways each year, the number jumps by only about 4 percent each year. That`s not enough to account for a 100 percent jump in fatalities.

So far in March, nine people have died on Broward roads, the patrol said Sunday.